uires,--as
follows: At a time when the pure faith of Christ was in danger from
the power and craft of His enemies, there came to its defender,
Titurel, angelic messengers of the Saviour's, and gave into his
keeping the Chalice from which He had drunk at the Last Supper
and into which the blood had been gathered from His wounds as He
hung upon the Cross; likewise the Spear with which His side had
been pierced. Around these relics Titurel built a temple, and an
order of knighthood grew. The temple, Monsalvat, stood upon the
Northern slope of mountains overlooking Gothic Spain. No road led
to its doors, and those only could find their way to it whom the
Holy Spirit guided; and those only could hope to be so guided,
and could belong to the brotherhood, who were pure in heart and
clean of the sins of the flesh. The knights were mystically fed
and strengthened by the vision of the Chalice--which is called
the Grail; the duties of the Order were "high deeds of salvation,"
comprehending warfare upon Christ's enemies, at home and in distant
lands.

On the southern slope of the mountain, facing Moorish or heathen
Spain. Klingsor had gone into hermitage, in an attempted expiation
of evil committed down in the heathen world. What his sin had been,
Gurnemanz says, he knows not; but he aspired to become a holy man,
he wished to join the brotherhood of the Grail. Finding it impossible
to subdue sin in himself by the spirit, he sought, as it were, a
mechanical substitute for virtue, by which, however, he failed
to attain his object, for his sacrifice called forth from Titurel
only contempt, and he was rejected from the Order. He turned all
the strength of his rage then to acquiring black arts by which
to ruin the detested brotherhood. On the southward mountainside,
he created by sorcery a wonderful pleasure-palace and garden, in
which uncannily beautiful women grew. This lay in the path of the
knights of the Grail, a temptation and a trap, and one so effectual
that he who permitted himself to be lured into it was lost; there
had been no exception, safety lay singly in avoidance. Titurel
having reached so great an age that he had no longer strength to
perform the service of the Grail, invested with the kingly office
Amfortas, his son. The latter undertook at once the removal of
the standing danger to his knights, the destruction of Klingsor.
Armed with the Sacred Spear, he fared forth.... Alas! even before
the walls of the enchanted